Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.

Sunday, May 01, 2016

May Day and the Disinherited

Humanity needs socialism. We must rid ourselves of the motives of capitalist profits. The only power that can save humanity from the peril of barbarism is the working class. It must free itself from all dependence on the possessing classes. It must cease all collaboration, compromise and concession with their exploiters and embark on the road of class struggle, the route to socialist victory. For the peoples of the world to arrive at the longed-for destiny of peace and plenty capitalism is the enemy. Never has there been a May Day, when the working class of the world faced more momentous issues and tasks than this 1st of May. The Great Recession may be over for the 1% but there is still no relief in prospect for the 99%. On one hand we find the utmost centralisation and concentration of capital and, at the other end, we find the masses subjected to increasing misery and merciless wage cutting. Yet there is no limit to the productivity of new technology. In other words, production is shackled and sabotaged by the capitalists who are guided by their lust for profit and not by the wants and needs of the people.

Workers must organise their forces for the complete overthrow of the system of wage slavery. Parliamentary activity, important though it may be, is not enough. The working class must mobilise themselves in the extra-parliamentary struggle—in the everyday struggle for the improvement of their living standards—and this struggle must be carried on with the ultimate view of complete liberation from the profit system. Every piece of repressive capitalist legislation, every attack on freedom of assembly and other civil liberties must be relentlessly fought.

Military expenditure has increased colossally but to see the principal cause of the war danger in the intrigues of the armament manufacturers is false and leaves the roots of war untouched. War will cease when the profit motive is taken out of all industry, not merely the arms trade. War will end when the capitalist state whose primary function is the protection of private property is abolished. Workers must not let themselves be duped again and again by the lies of the politicians. The enemy is at home and the way to stop war is to organise against the profit system. The way to strive for peace is to work for the overthrow of the capitalist system. Each national section of the working class must direct its ire against its own capitalist class, every section of the working class must fraternise with the brothers and sisters in the "enemy" country.

Civilisation hovers at the edge of an abyss. Socialism is the salvation. Production must be released from the fetters of private property and personal profit. The resources of the world must pass into the collective possession of mankind. All other problems, the problems of nationality and of race and religion will be solved once society is freed from exploitation and class divisions.

The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have the World to gain. Workers of the world—unite!